EVERYONE MUST TAKE TIME TO SIT AND WATCH THE LEAVES TURN

CELEBRATE FALL

THE MORE YOU LAUGH THE LONGER YOU LIVE

IMAGINATION IS MORE THAN KNOWLEDGE ..... - ALBERT EINSTEIN

THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH UNDISCOVERED WONDERS. COME LITTLE ONE LETS FIND THEM TOGETHER

AUTUMN IS A SECOND SPRING WHEN EVERY FLOWER IS A LEAF

SCHOOL ART

Last Friday Emilee went to see Astro Boy. When she heard that they were making a movie of her beloved book she was so excited. She love the movie ( Except the part when the Father told his Robert/ Son that he was not his son. she kept calling the father a bad man and kept asking why he would hurt his sons feeling like that) The movie has a great message about love acceptance, diversity and recycling. As you know its not a kids movie if it dosent have a GREEN issue. LOL.

GYMNASTICS

Emilee loves Gymnastics, she started at 2 1/2 and is a natural. In fact she is a natural athlete all around. She is very focused, determined and competitive, , has great muscle tone, she is very flexible and steady on her feet and she pick up things quickly. Besides dance class, Gymnastics seems to be her favorite sport. She loves to tumble and cartwheel around the house and runs to walk any straight line or beam in site. Too bad she is so tall we may have had a future Gymnast in the making.

EMILEE AND ELIZABETH

FUN WITH PHOTOSHOP

Adding one more picture courtesy of Ninons Mom marianne
Its a picture of Children in a Xuwen Fishing Village

YOU CANT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING UNTIL YOU KNOW WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN

Every so often I search the Internet for pictures of Emilees hometown of Xuwen , China. Since i have never been there, Emilee was transported 11 hours by train to Guangzhou I am curious about any bit of information i can obtain. I can across these pictures from a local Chinese newspaper of daily life in Xuwen and they fascinate me. I thought I would share them with you.

Xuwen--The Harbor of Departure on "the Silk Road at Sea" in China
Total:31,2006/12/03 Xuwen,China---To many people, the famous Silk Road in the northwest of China is well-known. Recently, a group of Chinese archeologists and historians have found Xuwen in south China's Guangdong Province the starting point of a sea route to central and west Asia. The sea route that existed some 200 years earlier than the " Silk Road" is now known as China's oldest trading link to Europe and middle and west Asia. Xuwen lies in the southern tip of the Leizhou Peninsula and was officially designated as an entry port during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD). A few other cities in Guangdong and Fujian provinces in south China, including Quanzhou and Guangzhou, were considered as the beginning of the marine trading route. The earliest official trade fleet sent by the Chinese imperial government during the Western Han started in Xuwen, according to the "History of Former Han Dynasty". This was also the time that Chinese silk reached ancient Greece. The silk trade may have started a lot earlier than what textual records tell us because a lot of trade was done by individuals rather than officials. Boats leaving from Guangdong Province would have sailed southwestward along the coastline to load goods or obtained freshwater at ports in Guangdong Province before departing from Xuwen to parts of west or south Asia

KALEBS 4TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

The Birthday Boy and his Mom

( Georgina and I have been friends since high school)

THANKS

FINALLY THE LAST OF HALLOWEEN PICTURES

HALLOWEEN PARTY AT NANAS APARTMENT BUILDING -- COSTUME # 5 THE WITCH

Every year Emilee's Nana's building hosts a an amazing Halloween party in their lobby. It has been a tradition for us to go every year and every year it never disappoints. They have games for the kids, clowns, puppets shows, balloon animals, dancing and more. Its great seeing all the kids get older from year to year. Its a great way to spend Halloween night.

Candy

waitng for the show to start

A DAY AT THE PARK WITH EMILEE & GRACE

That night was the turning point in the seasonwe had gone to be in summer& we awoke in autumn;for summer passes into autumnin some imaginable point of timelike the turning of a leaf

Thoreau

ALICE IN WONDERLAND --- COSTUME #4

HALLOWEEN PARTY AT EMILEES SCHOOL

Emilee, Elizabeth and their Teacher Miss N

Emilees Pre-K class had a party at school on Friday Oct 30th. All the kids and teachers got dressed up, they had a costume parade and afterwards they all sat down for yummy treats. The kids could not be any cuter.

Emilee, Nicole and their other teacher Miss I

A FEW PICTURES FROM AFTER SCHOOL

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN

HALLOWEEN IN RICHMONDTOWN--- QUEEN OF HEARTS-- COSTUME #3

Friday we met with school friends at the annual historic Richmond Town Halloween Fest. Its a fun event that is sort of a Victorian Halloween ( everyone is dressed up in period costumes )complete with Trick-Or-treating at all the Victorian houses, , apple catching ( the apples are hung on strings and the kids have to grab them with their teeth), hay jumping, medal crafts, and old fashioned games.
We were a group of 20 kids, more like a class trip, and it was total Chaos and a lot of fun. The kid were running everywhere giggling, laughing and playing. It was a pip to watch.
A great start to Halloween...

Tring to get a group shot of the all kids was not going to happen.

heres a few of the more coperative ones

how cute do they look....

Grace (Princess) , Emilee ( Queen or Hearts)and Elizabeth ( Tinkerbell)

Cailyn (Peacock)and Emilee

Emilee and jarred ( Transformer)

another attempt at a group shot

We failed

Apple Catching

Emilee has to pick the one that is different

trick or treat at the Black Smith

Leaf jumping

Trick or treating at the Old shop

Making medal crafts

Hay Jumping

3/30

WERE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD.......... COSTUME #2

AND TOTO TOO...

A local restaurant near us hosts a Halloween Party every year. The usually do it a few days before Halloween and its always fun. They have characters walking around greeting all the kids, they make balloon animal and they do face painting. its a fun way to kick off the holiday.

Emilees balloon Horse

shes a star to me

THE RUBY RED SLIPPERS

DOROTHY AND THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST

OUR HALOWEEN JACK-O-LANTERN

A DAY AT THE PUMPKIN PATCH WITH CAILYN

2/30

I am truly blessed to have the my Mom as my Mother. She is my true hero and the one person I admire and look up to the most in life. I owe so much to her. She has given me so much in life and i am who I am because of her. But I am most blessed with what she has given to my daughter. I love the way the two of them look at each other. You can see and feel how much they mean to each other from the other end of the room. it is beautiful. Its like watching a pot of gold explode at the end of a Rainbow.

1/30

As I have mentioned before, the apple of my eye is my daughter Emilee. I can not express enough how truly blessed I am to have her in my life. She is pure joy and happiness. As most of you know it took me five years and everything that could go wrong, to finally hold Emilee in my arms and from the moment I first saw her sweet smile all was forgotten and I would have waited 100 years to hold her. She is everything that is good and pure and right in the world and whenever she enters the room a ray of sunshine shines through. I am not only blessed to watch this child grow and blossom into the incredible person i know she will become, but I am also blessed to be granted the honor of being her mom.

SWEET DREAMS

November is national blog posters months. 30 posts in 30 days.
.
I hope you enjoy this challenge and follow along. i would love to hear from all of you and hear what are doing.
Have a very happy November.

AHOY MATTIES---- COSTUME #1

SCORE

PUMPKING CARVING

Look at Emilees face

she hated touching the insides of the Pumpkin

Lets do Lunch.....

I love my Planet....

the other day Emilee came to me and said " Mommy you know what i love". I smiled and said " what" She said " I love you and Grandma. Andrew and Joseph. Nana. RebeccaAnneSarah ( yes she says it as one word). Aunt Fay, uncle Neil, Aunt Grace, My teachers my friends ( she named everyone) my toys, and my Planet."
I asked her why her planet
She said " because it gives me everything I need"
She is so correct

THE XUWEN COUSINS OF FRANCE

Emilee is a child who lives out loud. She usually skips, gallops or hops almost anywhere she goes. She often tells me that "The world is a song and a dance" and she loves to jump off the bottom stair and shout, "hurray." In fact she loves to jump off anything. At times she thinks she is a superhero.

She is my little chatterbox and she loves adjectives. She usually asks me for a cup of "cold, white milk" or will tell me that her outfit is " a pretty sparky pink dress"".

She is also my oh-so-focused child. She has even been labeled as " Hyper-Focused". She can attend to a task for an uncanny amount of time. She will get a new puzzle or game and will sit and play with it until she figures it out and, only then, will be content to walk away from it.

She is also artistic, which makes my heart sing, and loves to draw, paint, play with Play Doh, glue and cut anything she can find if left alone with a pair of scissors. (That last part, about the cutting, doesn't make my heart sing though.)

She loves school and cant wait to get there every morning. In fact i am afraid one day she is going to jump out of the window of the car to get to school faster. She loves her teachers and talks about them non-stop. She thinks they have the greatest jobs and are the smartest people ( except mom) in the world. She loves to run out of school and tell me all about when she learned and saw everyday. She also loved to play school and pretend she is the teacher recounting all the knowledge she learned.

She loves book and making up stories. She has quite an imagination and loves to create and draw stories of her own.

She is both a tom boy who loves to climb and jump and act like a Power Ranger but is still a girly girl and firmly believes a pink tutu, sunglasses or a crown make any outfit look better -- and who can really argue with that. She happily clomps around in my shoes and loves to put on lip gloss.

Her prized possessions are her stuffed dog Emilee Julia who was given to her by her dear friend Julia and her Purple Elephant 'Elle" who was her first toy. ( I sent Elle to China with a Care package right after I received Emilee's picture. Elle got to meet Emilee before me and Emilee loves my story of the adventures of Elle),

She loves to cuddle and likes to do what she calls, "cheek smoosh." This is when she puts her cheek against mine and smooshes our faces together.

I find myself laughing out loud at her antics and continually amazed at the things she does. There is not a single day goes by that I'm not incredibly thankful to be her mom.

CHARITY EVENT AT THE STABLES

Micayla, Emilee & Elizabeth

Micayla, Dylan, Emilee & Elizabeth

Face Painting

THE GREAT WALL OF JULIA

Our dear friends and China Travel buddies recently went back to Beijing. For some of you who dont know who the Colbert family is. They are true Red threads to Emilee and me. They were part of my LID group and we patiently waited together for the news of our precious daughters. Both of our girls were 9 months when they were placed in our arms. Three and a half blessed years later we still share all the joys and memories together even if its via the Internet. We were fortunate to see them this past summer in Texas and we can wait to see them in January in Singapore. We miss them very much.

My favorite picture

could it be any cuter

BEND IT LIKE EMILEE

My Mini-Me

My friend Tammy's annual adult Halloween Party was last weekend. I went as a Pirate. Before I left for the party Emile decided to dress in her Pirate outfit for am impromptu Photo Shoot.

Darling Xuwen Cosuin Clara looking cute as a Pumpkin in her Halloween Costume

BOO AT THE ZOO

Our Zoo has Harvest Week every year. This year a bunch of Emilee's School Chums decided to get together for a play date at the Zoo. The kids had a great time running around through the Hay Maze, picking corn playing Hot Corn, and creating their own Pow Wow. ( It was sort of impromptu, the found a pumpkin took corn and began to chant and sing as they beat the pumpkin with the corn)

Class mates

Elizabeth, Jarred, Emilee

Dylan and Justina

The Pow Wow

The funny part was they gave eachother American Indian names

Hot Corn

( Think of the game Hot potato but with Corn)

The gang

Checking out the fish exhibit

Elizabeth and Emilee checking out the Chinese alligator

Making friends

How cute are these guys?

Emilee, Elizabeth and Dylan ---school buddy love

Emilee & Elizabeth

A Warm October Day --- My Favorite Kind

Leaving for dance class

Your going to howl, your going to boo, your going to scream its time for Halloween

MAKING HOMEMADE APPLE SAUCE WITH GRANDMA

My daughter the Heartbreaker

All of last year my daughter was smitten with a boy in her class, lets call him K. She always talked about him and the two of them were inseparable. All summer she was worried that her would not be in her class. When we found out he was she could not have been happier. That was until school started this year. A few weeks ago she came out of school and declared to me she was " In love with J'. she said it just like that. " Hes awesome". I smiles and said that's nice. She then walked over to K looked him straight in the yes and said " I don't love you any more. I love J. We are breaking up" ( where do they learn this) Poor K broke down in tears. I was in shock. How could my sweet, usually sensitive child who usually thinks of other peoples feeling say that to someone. especially a friend who she really likes. I called her over to explain what she did and how it made K feel. She said she didn't mean to make him cry. I told her i think k need an apology and a hug. She went over to him told him she was sorry, gave him a hung and then said " I love you but J is my boyfriend"
Boy am I in trouble when she gets older.

GRACES PRINCESS FASHION SHOW BIRTHDAY PARTY

Emilee, Birthday Girl Grace and Gianna

Happy 4th Birthday Gracie

The girls in the Barbie Room getting ready for costume and makeup

They love eachother

Pretty Girls in pretty Dresses

Check List

1. Pick out dress

2. get hair done

3. get nails done

4. make up

5. get dressed

6. get ready for the fashion show

Emilee struts her stuff

Birthday girl Grace enters the stage

Justina

Grace

Elizabeth

The Princess Ball

waiting for Tea Sandwiches

Time for Cake

After Lunch there was a puppet show

The girls loved it

The look on their faces says it all

Goody bags

PUMPKINS, PUMPKINS, PUMPKINS

BOUNCE

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A LITTLE WITCH

RIDING HIGH

THE PRINCESS WEARS PINK

BABY ITS COLD OUTSIDE

EMILEE AND MOMMY

JUST FOR FUN

Play

My Little Pumpkin ---then and now

Fall Fun with School Buddies

I can not tell you how blessed Emilee and i are to have such wonderful school buddies. When a child starts school you hope and pray that the children she picks to be her friends are nice kids. The extra bonus is when you like their parents also. Well we lucked out in both departments.
After school we try to go as a group with the kids so that they can play together away from the academic setting. Last week we took the kids to a local Pumpkin patch where they had bouncy rides. the kids had a great time laughing and jumping and just being kids. We "Moms" had the best time chatting an watching out precious darlings play. what could be better.

Emilee excited to see her friends

You would think she did see them all day

it was only 20 minutes since school let out

I LOVE FALL

EMILEES HUMPTY DUMPTY DRAWING ----MADE IN SCHOOL

XUWEN SISTER EVELYN AND MIRIAM GETTING READY FOR HALLOWEEN

MAKING A BIRTHDAY CARD FOR HER TEACHER

Pumpkin Picking

Last weekend my High School friend and I took our kids Pumpkin Picking. I can not tell you what a wonderful time we had picking pumpkin, pulling corn, bouncing on Hay rides, eating Cider donuts, drinking hot Apple cider, laughing and running around. Oh and the kids had a great time also.

The smile says it all

Emilees pick

sweet Kaleb

Buddies

Emilee and Kaleb

CURLY TOP

FIRE SAFETY WEEK

Boo

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DYLAN

Emilee and her school buddies

Emilee and Grace

Emilee and Nicole

The Birthday Boy

Happy 4th Birthday Dylan

Emilee won the Hula-Hoop contest

COLUMBUS DAY PROJECT

This picture cracks me up
Emilee drew a picture of Christopher Columbus saying "Hi"

HALLOWEEN PAST--The costume Parade

2006

2007

2008

HAPPY AUTUMN MOON

The Moon Festival - also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival - occurs on the 15th of the 8th lunar month, ( or Oct 3rd this year)which coincides with the Autumn equinox of the solar calendar.

This is the time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the summer's harvest. This is also one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture.

The festival dates back over 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty. According to the legend, Houyi was a famous archer who shot the suns and was married to Chang Er. One fateful night Chang Er was lifted up to the moon, where she has lived ever since.

This story is a favorite subject of many poets familiar to most Chinese.The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions. Traditionally, Chinese family members and friends will gather to watch full moon rise, eat moon cakes, eat pomelos and sing moon poems. Other customs include carrying brightly lit lanterns, burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang Er, planting mid-autumn trees and lighting lanterns on towers.Part of this holiday - the moon cakes! These Chinese pastries are typically round or square, filled with lotus seed paste and surrounded by a relatively thin (and oily) crust. Moon cakes may also contain salted duck egg yolk, which symbolizes the moon. Moon cakes are traditionally embossed with the Chinese characters for longevity or harmony on the top, and they are rich, heavy and dense compared to most Western cakes and pastries. They can be quite expensive and considered a delicacy - they're not easy to make, so don't attempt to create them at home. You can find them at Asian markets and bakeries, usually in red boxes and individually wrapped.

So venture to your nearest Asian market or Chinatown, snap up some mooncakes and a colorful lantern, and spend some time admiring the full moon.

BALLET SEASON BEGINS

we start our 3rd year of Ballet and Tap this year. its amazing how well Emilee has progressed from a jumpy Jumping jack ( of two years old) to a serious graceful student.